Catherine Carr L'79

Adjunct Professor of Law

Education

JD - Penn Law - '79

BA - Yale - '75

Catherine C. Carr the Executive Director of Community Legal Services, Inc. (CLS), a nonprofit law firm that provides free legal services to indigent Philadelphians in civil matters. CLS has two offices, over forty attorneys, sixty paralegals and other support staff, and handles about 20,000 cases every year. Carr served as a staff attorney at CLS for eleven years before becoming director, specializing in public benefits case litigation, including access to welfare, Social Security, and Medicaid. CLS has a national reputation for its expertise and excellent work and is the 2007 recipient of the ABA's Hodson Award for an excellent government or public interest legal organization.

Carr also serves or has served on the board of directors of a number of nonprofit organizations in Philadelphia, including The Reinvestment Fund, the Women's Law Project and VIP. She serves in leadership positions on a number of bar association projects, including the House of Delegates of the Pa. Bar Association, the Delivery of Legal Services Committee of the Philadelphia Bar Association, and the Legal Services Project of the ABA Litigation Section. She is the current Chair of the University of Pennsylvania Law School's Public Service Advisory Board. She is the recipient of a number of awards, including the National Legal Aid and Defender Association's Denison Ray Award and Rutger's Law School's Mary Philbrook Public Interest Award.

Carr received her J.D. magna cum laude from the University of Pennsylvania Law School, where she was an editor of the Law Review and her B.A. cum laude from Yale University, and clerked for the Honorable Norma L. Shapiro of the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.